We Support Our Veterans

As the wife of a veteran, I witnessed firsthand the impact of PTSD on active service members and veterans alike. Unfortunately, as my husband too often points out, much of the suffering that occurs happens either silently or even with repeated attempts at various treatments. During the midway point of the recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, there was a massive uptick in service members who needed help. The DoD tried its best in many ways to meet the demand. Unfortunately, like many mental health conditions, PTSD is difficult to study and even more difficult to treat. My husband frequently reached out to me as a psychiatrist asking for my thoughts. Back then, there weren’t many good answers. Therapy and medications can certainly help but there is a significant percentage of patients with PTSD for whom traditional mental health treatments just do not work.

Since my husband left the service, he has continued to talk to former sailors and marines regularly who struggle with PTSD. What is for certain is there hasn’t been a lot of progress made with regards to effective treatments, and access to care is hampered by the number of providers available. Not all of those providers may have the same connection with a service member either. Again, it’s a unique group of people whom we adore and we love to serve and pay back.

When we left the military community we knew they had given us an experience of a lifetime, friends forever, and sacrificed more than just early wake ups, long deployments, and the physical toll it can take on the body. The mental toll is sometimes worse. A meniscus tear or lower back pain as physical manifestations of service to our country are often outweighed by the mental sacrifices and long-term impact of traumatic experiences. While we don’t pretend to understand what it is like to walk in any patient’s shoes, we do know that through shared experience we can find common ground to determine the best way possible to help our service member community. Like our veterans, we don’t give up – we learn, we adjust, and we focus on our mission for each patient.